Heimwehr

The Heimwehr was a nationalist paramilitary group operating within Austria during the 1920s and 1930s. The group was formed mostly from demobilized Austro-Hungarian Army soldiers after World War I, and the Heimwehr was formed as a "home guard" to defend the borders of Austria. Under Chancellor Ignaz Seipel, the Heimwehr was reorganized as an answer to the Social Democratic Party of Austria's Schutzbund, and it was politicized as the armed wing of the Christian Social Party of Austria. In 1927, the Heimwehr assisted the police in suppressing socialist riots, and the socialists gave the Heimwehr the derogatory nickname "rooster tails" for wearing the tail feathers of the black grouse on their green Tyrolean loden hats.

In 1930, the Heimwehr leaders took the Korneuberg Oath, in which they promoted national conservatism and authoritarianism and rejected liberal democracy, Marxism, Nazism, German nationalism, and class struggle. German emigre Waldemar Pabst attempted to convince the Heimwehr to support corporatism in the style of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. The failure of a 1931 coup by Styrian Heimwehr leader Walter Pfrimer due to the apathy of other Heimwehr groups led to the Styrian Heimwehr and many other groupings increasingly defecting to the Austrian Nazi Party. The Heimwehr became rivals with the Nazis due to its promotion of Austrian nationalism instead of unification with Nazi Germany, and the Nazis and Heimwehr occasionally fought, with the Nazis egging a Heimwehr parade on one occasion. After Engelbert Dollfuss created the Fatherland Front in 1934, the Heimwehr was incorporated into the military, and Dollfuss' successor Kurt Schuschnigg absorbed the remaining Heimwehr elements into the Fatherland Front in 1936 as the paramilitary's support declined.